


Aftermath

by zjofierose



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Chaotic space, Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: The Fight, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 23:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8077573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: There's what stays with you after a traumatic event. Also, who.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have no idea what this is. I've been watching Voyager for a while, and am fully on the Janeway/Chakotay train, but I haven't particularly wanted/needed to write fic about them? But we watched The Fight the other night, and for some reason all I could think about afterward was all the various kinds of pain Chakotay must've been in (whiiiich the show pretty much blew off, but w/e). So, here, have this weird little one-shot I wrote- at least it's out of my head now!

It’s a sign, in case there was any remaining need of one, of how much you trust her. How, when she turns to you, and puts her hand on your chest as you lie prone on the bio bed, and says, “I need you to do this,” and “Are you ready to go back in the ring,” you just nod. 

She’s right, of course, like always. You were right, too, that pulling you out of the vision quest was wrong, and she listened to you, because that’s who she is. Even when she disagrees with someone, with you, even if she decides against a thing, she listens first. It is one of the things you love most about her; that she is not a tyrant. She treats her crew as valued individuals, people who have ideas and experiences that she, and consequently, the ship, may benefit from. 

You go back into the ring. You speak with the aliens. You escape chaotic space. 

You return to the holodeck the next day, because if you don’t get in the ring again, you never will, and you refuse to roll over that easily. She finds you outside the doors, teases you about your day off. There are other crewmen in the hall; neither of you say anything important. She understands, you can tell, and pats your arm and doesn’t restrain you. You box until you throw up, then you shut down the program, and leave.

You take a sonic shower, and dress in your pajamas. She’s on duty for another two hours, and it is not a night when you would share a meal, so you replicate yourself some stew and bread, food for a sick person, and you eat it alone at your table. You are intimately aware of your body, forcibly grounded into the pain of it in ways you hadn’t been before you became a conduit for alternate dimensional aliens. You hurt all over, in your bones, in your tendons. The little toes on your feet hurt, the bends of your collarbones hurt, the back of your throat hurts, from all the screaming. You feel pretty sure your hair hurts, and you’d say that’s not possible, but you’re trying to free yourself from the possible/impossible dichotomy these days. 

All you really want is to fall asleep in your chair, or maybe to crawl down onto the floor, facedown, and see if the deck won’t absorb you into itself. But you are a grown man, a Commander in Starfleet, so you force yourself to stand, to take your bowl and plate back to the replicator to be recycled before brushing your teeth and lying down on your bed.

\--

She’s there when you wake from the nightmare, panting and clenching your teeth so hard your jaw is popping. You take a moment to breathe your way to relative alertness past the adrenaline rush, and take her in, fully clothed except for her jacket and shoes, lying there on the bed beside you. She pulls you close and holds you in her arms as you burst into tears, face pressed against her warm chest, leaving wet spots on her turtleneck. She strokes her fingers through your hair and murmurs nonsense words, and for all that you’ve dreamed of having your face shoved into her breasts like this, there is nothing in your touch but the helpless clutching of a man desperate for comfort, for reassurance. 

Your breathing slows after a while, but she remains, waiting until she can feel your body beginning to tense with embarrassment before she says, “Tell me.”

“Which part?” You say, beginning to realize the full extent of the beating your body has taken as you stretch your legs out and pull back. Sleep has done nothing to ease your aches and pains; you feel worse now than before, stiff and old and undeserving. She doesn’t let you get far, for which you’re grateful; you feel obligated to try to do this on your own, but you don’t really want to break contact.

She shrugs. “All of it.”

You resettle yourself on your side facing her, one arm stretched across her hips, your head nestled against the front of her shoulder. You’re always surprised by how small she is; her presence is so large, that when you touch her, it takes you aback, the physical evidence of this indomitable person contained in such a seemingly delicate vessel. 

“When my grandfather started to lose his mind,” you begin, glad that you can’t see her face, “he wasn’t happy about it. Not at first.” You collect your thoughts, letting yourself settle into the calming immediacy of her presence, and continue. “Later on, he was insistent that that was the only way he could be. He wouldn’t take his meds, he wouldn’t agree to be watched, he was a danger; mostly to himself, but sometimes to others, when he was deeply in the visions.” You take a breath, memories churning through your mind. You haven’t thought of this in years, have tried to forget it. “It was never the fact that he had the visions, heard the voices that bothered me. It was…” You think for a moment. “I guess it was two things, really. The first was that he lost his relationships- he couldn’t stay in the moment long enough to have a conversation, he couldn’t remember things you’d told him the day before, he didn’t always recognize his own wife, his own children. He had spent his whole life dedicated to his people, to his family, and by the end of his life, he was lost in his head, alone.”

She makes an encouraging noise, the fingers of her hand rubbing at the base of your neck, digging into the tendons and pushing on pressure points.

“The second…” you breathe out, and choose your words carefully. “I don’t know whether he was crazy, or whether he was touched by the spirits. I don’t know that those are mutually exclusive things. But… I could never tell if it was his  _ choice _ .” Her fingers still against your skin, then move up into your hair, continuing the firm, soothing motions from before. “In the beginning, he didn’t want it, I know that. But at some point he did, and I never knew whether that was because he, the man, my grandfather, weighed and considered the options and the events and then made a conscious choice to accept the spirits, or whether the chemicals in his brain took the choice away from him.” You shake your head, thinking of your grandfather as a young man, tall, handsome, unbent. “Should we have forced him to be medicated? We didn’t want to strip him of his autonomy, but had he already been robbed of it by the voices in his head?” You realize your voice has risen, and you exhale slowly, shifting against the mattress. “The idea of losing my family, my friends… of losing you…” her hand stills again, and you can feel the light tension in her body. “It’s about the worst thing I can imagine, but there are instances in which I would choose it. If the loss would benefit the crew, or you… I would do it.”

“Yes,” she says, “the needs of the many…”

“Yes,” you agree. “It would be the worst thing in my life, but it would be worth it. Even if I weren’t able to choose it, for whatever reason, if it were a loss forced upon me… as long as there was good that came of it, it would be bearable. But the idea of being  _ tricked  _ into thinking I had chosen it, the idea that I could become so completely  _ not  _ myself that I would believe that other things were more important…”

You can feel her nodding, and you know she understands. There is no greater god to her than this ship, and that belief, that feeling, is as fundamentally a part of her as her determination, her bravery, her driving curiosity. 

“Like being drugged, or brainwashed,” she says, and you nod. 

“Yes.” You shudder against her. “When the doctor told me my gene had been switched on, it felt like hearing a death sentence. If we had stayed trapped in here,” your throat tightens, “if the aliens hadn’t been able to communicate with me well enough… the thought that I could have become unmoored from myself, from my spirits, enough to become a danger to this ship, this crew… to become a danger to you…” You feel your hand clutching convulsively at her hip. You just hurt, all over, your body exhausted and sore from the holodeck, your mind achy and not yet fully your own, and your soul tender from the fear and the memories. Your mind is spinning, no-win scenarios rushing through your head, images of the aliens, of your grandfather, of her face in a rictus of terror, and you can’t calm down, you can’t breathe, you can’t...

She pushes you down so that you’re lying flat on your other side on the bed, pulls the blankets tight around you, and curls herself around your body, somehow managing to wrap you fully in her arms and legs, her limbs strong and heavy.

“Listen to me,” she says, her voice steely with command. “I will never, not  _ ever _ , allow anyone or anything to take you from yourself, or from me.” It’s impossible not to believe her when she’s like this; she’s impossibly fierce, impossibly bold, and because she unquestioningly knows her words to be true, you do, too. “There is no force in this universe that can make me stop protecting you, not a creature, not a natural phenomenon. You are mine, and there is nothing else that matters.” Her hands are gentle on your brow, even as her body remains firm against you. You let yourself go, muscles relaxing, exhausted spirit fading into rest, safe in her unceasing guard. 

“Now sleep,” she says softly, and you do.


End file.
